But Germany has no space for nuclear waste. They haven't been able to bury the last batch for over 30 years. And the one that they buried most recently began to leak radioactivity into ground water.

And.. why give Russia more military target opportunities?

Also when you account for those batteries the cost is going to shift a bit.

You better be bringing units if you're going to be claiming this.

Still less than half of the LCOE of nuclear when storage is added: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1475611/global-levelized-cost-of-energy-components-by-technology/

Given that both solar and storage costs are trending downwards while nuclear is not, this basically kills any argument for nuclear in the future. It's not viable on its face - renewables + storage is the definitive future.

You're using factors of less than 10 to argue against a factor of 100.

The batteries needed are a lot less than you might think. Solar doesn't work at night and the wind doesn't always blow, but we have tons of regional weather data about how they overlap. From that, it's possible to calculate the maximum historical lull where neither are providing enough. You then add enough storage to handle double that time period, and you're good.

Getting 95% coverage with this is a very achievable goal. That last 5% takes a lot more effort, but getting to 95% would be a massive reduction in CO2 output.

What isn't sensible about nuclear? For context, I'm coming from the US in an area with lots of empty space (i.e. tons of place to store radioactive waste) and without much in the way of hydro (I'm in Utah, a mountainous, desert climate). We get plenty of sun as well as plenty of snow. Nuclear should provide power at night and throughout the winter, and since ~89% of homes are heated with natural gas, we only need higher electricity production in the summer when it's hot, which is precisely what solar is great for.

So here's my thought process:

• nuclear for base load demand to cover nighttime power needs, as well as the small percentage of homes using electricity for heat
• solar for summer spikes in energy usage for cooling
• batteries for any excess solar/nuclear generation

If we had a nuclear plant in my area, we could replace our coal plants, as well as some of our natural gas plants. If we go with solar, I don't think we have great options for electricity storage throughout the winter.

This is obviously different in the EU, but surely the nordic countries have similar problems as we do here, so why isn't nuclear more prevalent there?

MW/h

There is MW which is a unit of power and then there is MWh which is a unit of energy, but what is MW/h supposed to mean?

Maybe just use percentages instead of these weird units. 0.2 MHh per hour is just 0.2 MW, or 20%.

It seems easier to say solar produces an average of 20% of it's peak capacity.

Nuclear actually around 0.6, because 1/3 is always off for repair and control.

The land thing isn't anywhere near enough of a concern for me, especially when dual uses of land are quite feasible.

24/7 is just about over commissioning and having storage. Build 10x as much and store what you generate. At those sorts of levels even an overcast day generates.

Using the remaining 99% of the cost to bury batteries underground would seem reasonable.

You aren't wrong, but you are assuming that the grid is required. Solar panels can be installed at the point of use, and then the grid doesn't come into it at all.